"But you lot, who are only alive because of her suffering and sacrifice, have no right to spit venom at her."
"Who the hell are you? What nonsense are you talking about?!"
Sho, who had barely interacted with the outside world, had no idea who the already famous Kabe was. To him, Kabe was just some stranger talking rubbish.
Kabe folded his arms across his chest and ignored Erza's anxious tugging behind him. He spoke bluntly, cutting straight to the truth.
"All of you were deceived by Jellal. The truth is that six years ago, it was Jellal, under illusion brainwashing, who personally destroyed the ship you were going to escape on."
"He used your lives as leverage to forbid Erza from revealing the Tower of Heaven's location. If she talked, you would die, one by one."
He looked each of them in the eye.
"If things were really like Jellal said, if Erza had betrayed you first, he could have taken you, built another ship, and sailed away at any time. So why keep you here to keep building the Tower of Heaven?"
Those words completely overturned the "truth" Jellal had drilled into them all these years.
Sho, Wally and Millianna all wore the same expression, a mix of disbelief, doubt, and shock.
Only Simon's face flickered briefly with realization, as if a suspicion he had buried in his heart had finally been confirmed.
"You are insane. What are you babbling about?"
Sho's voice shook as he shouted.
"Did big sis tell you that? Do not be fooled. This is just a story she made up to win your sympathy."
"The truth is that big sis sank our ship and Jellal saved us in the end."
As he said this, Sho pulled out a stack of cards from his pocket.
"At the end of the day, you are just an outsider. You do not understand anything, so stop getting in our way."
"Outsider, huh?"
Kabe's brow twitched. In the next instant, his figure blurred and vanished from where he had been standing.
"Kid, you have been annoying me from the start, calling her big sis this and big sis that..."
Before any of them could react, Kabe was already standing in the middle of their group.
He spread his arms and, with golden light flickering at his fingertips, pressed one glowing finger against Sho's temple and the other against Wally's.
"Who said you could call my girlfriend that intimately?"
His words landed just as the four of them finally caught up to what had happened. Their eyes widened in disbelief.
Simon turned his head in shock and met Kabe's dark eyes, which were full of silent warning.
If Kabe remembered correctly, this iron chinned wannabe Gajeel lookalike had secretly liked Erza in the original story.
He did not consider himself petty, but when it came to relationships, he was absolutely an exception.
Simon, however, was too overwhelmed by Kabe's overwhelming power to think that far. His mind went blank for a moment.
As for Sho and Wally, they did not even dare to twitch. They could clearly feel the terrifying energy condensed at the ends of Kabe's fingers.
Every instinct in their bodies screamed that if they moved recklessly, they might really die right here.
"Kabe, please, do not."
Afraid that her former companions would get hurt, Erza called out to him in panic.
Standing just behind Kabe, Millianna also snapped out of her daze at Erza's shout.
Her little tiger fangs bared, sharp claws sprang from her fingertips as she blew hot air and lunged at Kabe's back.
Without even turning his head, Kabe simply flicked his tail. The long, furred appendage swept sideways, knocking her claws away, then curled up and lightly looped around the cat girl's neck like a scarf.
"Do not move. For Erza's sake, I will not hurt any of you."
He turned his head slightly, his tone calm but firm.
Millianna grabbed at the fluffy tail around her neck, her dark grey slit pupils shrinking to pinpoints as she blurted out in reflex,
"Kitty!"
"It is a monkey tail, you idiot."
Kabe's hair practically stood on end, but the moment the words left his mouth he felt something was off and hastily corrected himself.
"No, you are the monkey. I am from the strongest warrior race, a Saiyan."
Millianna did not care about his ranting at all. Her face lit up as she eagerly revealed the tail behind her and proudly swished it left and right.
"That is right, that is right, look, I have one too. It is a kitty tail, meow."
"I swear..."
Kabe forced down the urge to start cursing, took a deep breath, and gave up on trying to argue with this dumb cat.
Instead, he tilted his head back and shouted loudly at the air above them.
"Jellal, Siegrain, I do not care which name you prefer. I know you are watching from up there."
"Get down here right now and explain all the crap you have done. If you do not, do not blame me for laying out every detail of your little schemes to the Magic Council."
At the top of the tower, Jellal's expression had already changed when Kabe displayed the power to casually dominate Sho and the others.
Now, hearing him call out the name Siegrain, the alias of his thought projection in the Council, his face twisted even more.
"Destroyer Kabe. I truly underestimated you."